


Molotov

by sistercacao



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Episode Zero (Gundam Wing), Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 20:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13865478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistercacao/pseuds/sistercacao
Summary: An angry boy throws the first salvo in a war of revenge.Written for GW Cocktail Friday on Tumblr.





	Molotov

The street outside his building was on fire.

Duo noticed it first in the strange twist to the dance the shadows took up the walls of the dark room, before he saw the orange glow filling the cracked window, before the screams of people in the streets filtered up to him. He turned from the spot in the corner of the room he had been staring at for God knew how long to look down at the scene playing out impassively below him like a movie on a television in a storefront window.

People flooded the street, a river of angry bodies, thousands of boots crossing a sea of shattered glass and torn paper and the general refuse of L-2. A group of men were halfway to overturning a car unlucky enough to be caught in their way. And the street ahead and around the mob was on fire, as if the very anger in the air had made it go up in flames.

The protests against the Earth government happened more and more often, it seemed. Duo wasn’t sure who they were rioting against. The embassy on the colony had long since been abandoned, when the colonial government decided it was too  _ dangerous _ to let their people stick around once they’d decided they weren’t going to do a thing about the sickness, the poverty, the misery brought down on this colony by their callous greed. 

Solo used to make him and the others stay inside when the riots broke out. It was too dangerous for a bunch of kids, he said. He was probably right.

But Solo was dead, and it was  _ their _ fault. And now Duo had nothing but his hollow anger, his desire to make it even, somehow. The anarchy loose on the street below looked something like the burning in his chest. The mob’s screams rang in his ears with the same timbre of the screams in his head.

He hadn’t left this room in days, content to watch the ghost of Solo in the shadows, but the orange glow on the street had him climbing out of the window and flitting down the fire escape as if in a trance. 

He wandered between the moving, howling bodies, the heat of the fire and the pulsing anger washing comfortably over him. The glass under his shoes crunched like brittle bones, like the whole colony was a graveyard, a monument to despair, the people around him just vengeful ghosts, heading out to take revenge of the souls of those who had sucked the life out of this place. And he the caretaker, surveying his grounds.

Ahead, the mob crowded around the grave of a colonial government courthouse, abandoned like the embassy, uncaring eyes shut and boarded. The boards had been pulled away, the windows were smashed out, and now the ghosts poured into the gaping holes left in their wake, swarming the door before forcing it open, too.

Someone paused at his side and he turned. A man with a handkerchief tied around his face had stopped, a bottle clutched in his hand. The bottle was half-empty with something strong enough for Duo to smell and plugged with a scrap of cloth. The man pulled a lighter from his pocket and held it to the fabric, and Duo watched the flame creep slowly up the cloth. 

Suddenly, the man turned to him.

“Wanna try, kid?”

He held the bottle in offering.

If Solo had been there, he would have probably clocked the guy. He would’ve probably said something like, “get the hell away from him!” with that false bravado he was so good at. He would’ve pulled Duo out of the mob, taken him somewhere safe, told him it was no place for a kid.

Solo was dead. 

Maybe Duo would never get even with the ones responsible. But tonight, he could send a message to them. They could look up from their lofty towers back on earth and see the flames raging on the colony they abandoned. They were afraid of the colonists, the ghosts left here to haunt the streets, the fire ignited from their misery. 

They ought to be. They had no idea who the hell they were dealing with. They were dealing with him, now.

He took the bottle from the man and turned toward the courthouse. 

You’re right to be afraid of me, he thought. I’ll be your worst nightmare.

The molotov cocktail flew in a silent arc over the crowd, shattering a window on the courthouse second floor. In an instant, the facade of the building exploded into flames, millions of shards of shattered glass sparkling orange and yellow, raining down on the street like fireworks. Like this violence was a celebration, a statement of purpose, a promise of more to come. 

Duo stared into the blaze, feeling something like pride swell inside him. 

He would not become a ghost, doomed to haunt this ruined colony. He would tame Death itself, make it give back the lives it took, the lives it stole from him. He was the spark that would someday become the flame that would cleanse the earth of the evil, the greed that could leave everyone he loved to die. And he would leave the whole earth ablaze if he had to, if that’s what it took to get even.

Duo turned from the crowd and slipped into the night, the fire at his back still warming him long after he was far away.


End file.
